Ask anyone to describe Cleopatra and they will almost surely give you some variation of "beautiful, sexy, vulnerable, lonely, lovesick". But what was she really like? Scholars today are beginning to put together the pieces of this ancient mystery, and the results may surprise you.
To understand Cleopatra, you must first understand that Egypt had been conquered by the Greeks many years before Cleopatra was born. In fact, Alexander the Great swept through there so fast he hardly had time to sleep. When he left, he named Egypt's greatest city after himself and it's still called Alexandria today. He also left Egypt reduced to a Greek colony. As a result, the country was under the control of the Greek ruling class, of which Cleopatra was a direct descendant. She was the granddaughter of Ptolemy IX, though we don't know who her grandmother was. Perhaps she was an Egyptian, in which case, Cleopatra might have been a black woman, though the records of the mating rituals of the Ptolemies indicate that they were such snobs about their bloodline, they married their own brothers to keep out riffraff genes.
In 69 BC, Cleopatra VII was born into the House of Ptolemy - a family of liars, thieves, snobs, murderers and gluttons who were isolated from and despised by the native Egyptians. In order to keep the natives in their place, Ptolemy XII (Cleopatra's father) had to beg money and troops from Rome, which had taken the place of Greece as the dominant world power. On one of his trips to Rome, Cleopatra's eldest sister took over the throne. She was assassinated and the next daughter in line took the throne. When dad returned, he brought plenty of Roman soldiers and took the throne back, then he executed his daughter. Now Cleopatra was the eldest child and when she was 18, her father died, leaving the throne to her and her 10 year old brother, who was also her fiancée.
When Julius Caesar sailed into Alexandria with 3,000 Roman troops to collect payment on the debts of Ptolemy XII, he met Cleopatra and was smitten by her. So, what did Cleopatra have that so enamored the most powerful man on Earth? It probably wasn't her looks, though it may have been her brains. She was known as a learned scholar in the sciences and could speak five languages fluently. Whatever it was, a few short months after Caesar left Cleopatra gave birth to his son. Not before her co-ruler was found drowned in the Nile and she was married to her 12 year old youngest brother, Ptolemy XIV.
She called the child Caesarian and she hoped Caesar would name him successor to the position of Ruler of Rome, but he didn't. After Caesar was stabbed to death, her young husband and brother conveniently died and she returned to Egypt. Enter Marc Antony, who was completely undone by Cleopatra's charms. Apparently, she wrapped him around her finger so tight it cut off the circulation. He followed her to Egypt where the two of them lived a carefree live for a while.
By this time, Cleopatra had built the Egyptian Empire to the state of profitability and, in a twist of fate, Marc Antony had to ask her for financial help for the Roman army. The price she asked in return was the death of the last threat to her throne - her only surviving sibling , her sister Arsinoe.
Meanwhile, back on the Rome front, trouble was brewing and Antony returned home to settle the bickering. The price he paid was an arranged marriage to Octavia, daughter of Caesar. But he just couldn't stay away from Cleopatra and he returned to Egypt to find Cleopatra and his twin children doing the domestic thing. The fire of passion ignited again and they were off to the races one more time, this time producing a son. This little fling would ultimately be their last, however, as Antony named Cleopatra "Queen of Kings" in a public ceremony, then divorced Octavia.
Hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn, and Octavia, with the help of her brother Octavian, set out to destroy Antony and Cleopatra. This they certainly did. Antony followed Cleopatra everywhere, as one scholar has noted, "like a sick puppy". When the news reached Egypt that Octavian was on his way to destroy them, Antony offered to kill himself if Octavian would spare the life of Cleopatra. Devoted love? Maybe it's just plain sick. The offer was refused, but Antony disemboweled himself anyway.
When Octavian arrived he took Cleopatra prisoner, but she found her own way out of the mess, though it wasn't through the bite of an asp. Nobody has recorded her exact cause of death, although we can be sure it arrived at her own hand. She may have used a cobra, or she may have drank poison. Whatever she did, she left the Earth while a prisoner of war at the tender age of 39. Thus ended the reign of the last great Hellenistic ruler and the final threat to Roman domination, as well as one of history's most powerful women.

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